The use of facsimile machines is wide spread. The widespread use of facsimile machines has resulted in a general acceptance and understanding of their use. One such use of facsimile machines is to transmit the content of physical documents and notes.
A conventional facsimile machine is illustrated in FIG. 1. As illustrated in FIG. 1, a facsimile machine includes a scanner 102 under direction of a central control unit 104. The scanner 102 accepts documents to be faxed and coverts the documents to a digital form at a resolution required for the FAX transmission. The central control unit 104 may store the documents or scan the documents as the documents are needed for transmission.
A FAX modem 106, interfaced to the public switched telephone network 108 (PSTN), when in transmission mode, accepts a data stream from the central control unit 104 and handles transmission of digital images and any protocol and communication tasks.
When the FAX machine is in reception mode, the FAX modem 106 recognizes an incoming FAX request, negotiates the communication protocol, and receives digital images which are sent to the central control unit 104. The central control unit 104 sends the images to an attached printer 112 where the images are printed.
There is also a user interface 110 that directs the functions of the central control unit 104. The user interface 110 may include facilities for a user to enter a phone number, select a FAX resolution option, and/or other similar functions.
Facsimile machines have also been implemented that are part of a device that performs several other functions. These so-called multifunction devices, or “all-in-ones,” incorporate features that enable the printer 108 and scanner 102 to be used in a stand alone mode. The conventional multifunction device usually includes some sort of computer interface 114, typically a USB type of connection.
Such a conventional multifunction device allows an attached computer to develop a document to be faxed directly from a word processing application and use the interfaced facsimile machine to perform the transmission function. Similarly the attached computer may use either the printer 112 or the scanner 102 as if the printer 112 and the scanner 102 are independent devices.
Another feature which has been added to a conventional facsimile machine is fax-back. Fax-back processes are typically used to retrieve information using facsimile transmissions. A request for information is faxed to the source and a response to the request is faxed back to the requestor. Often the request form is annotated with the response and used for the reply. The forms can include machine readable image content such as bar codes to aid in connecting electronic systems to the fax process.
Facsimile transmissions have been used because of the perceived security. Moreover, facsimile transmissions have been used because facsimile transmission is the only communication channel universally available. However, some means for migration to more direct communication between electronic systems is needed.
For example, a medical drug management company may employ facsimile transmissions as part of their work process. In this case, a patient can phone in a prescription request to the drug management company, and the drug management company, in turn, will contact a local pharmacy in order to fill the request. The drug management company will forward the prescription request to the pharmacy by faxing a form, and the pharmacy replies to the request by filling out the form and faxing it back.
Facsimile transmission is used in this process because of security and privacy requirements and because facsimile transmission is supported by essentially all pharmacies.
In order to partially automate the process, the drug company may include a barcode on the faxed form that identifies the request. When the form is faxed back to the drug management company, the barcode can be scanned and used to identify the request which is being answered. It is noted that data glyphs may be used instead of barcodes.
It is noted that the conventional facsimile process is not particularly compatible with various modern electronic systems. More specifically, the conventional facsimile process does not provide an adequate platform to enable a direct transfer of non-facsimile-communication-protocol/non-facsimile-image digital data between electronic systems, while maintaining the conventional facsimile capability of transmitting and receiving facsimile communication protocol and image data.
Therefore, it is desirable to extend the current work process to support interaction of electronic systems when electronic systems are available at both ends of the communication channel, while maintaining compatibility with other security and privacy requirements so that a direct transfer of non-facsimile-communication-protocol/non-facsimile-image digital data between electronic systems may be realizable while maintaining the conventional facsimile capability of transmitting and receiving facsimile communication protocol and image data.